No Demons But Us

by A. S. Etaski

  “We’ll see what Rausery thinks.”

  A rough, gloved hand took my jaw, gripping hard as she forced me to look up. I squeezed my thighs in unconscious want, my desires clashing as I met eyes like scratched rubies or Kain’s unpolished gems. I saw raw centuries there. I’d never been this close to a Davrin this old.

  “Blue eyes,” she muttered without blinking. “New Consort seed, eh?”

  “No, Prime, she is not their seed,” Elder D’Shea corrected. “Her older sisters were. Sirana is a simple mix of the Eleventh and Twelfth Houses. These eyes are a fluke from either Thalluen or Bovritz.”

  The Prime squinted at me, and I held still even when she pressed on a nerve by my teeth. She could see my pain; she seemed to like it, and her calm awareness of my presence strengthened on that account.

  “Throwback?”

  D’Shea tilted her head. “Clarification, Prime?”

  “Bah.” The old Davrin tossed the comment aside as if she’d already lost interest. “She needs training, D’Shea. She looks like a Goddess-damned Noble. Soft as unfired batshit.”

  The Elder Sorceress sounded as elegant as a Noble in her reply. “It shall be done, Prime.”

  Our superior released my aching jaw as I blinked back tears which I did not want to flow out onto her glove. I could barely move it at first, but that was just as well; it was clear I should only speak when spoken to. The Prime turned her back on me and returned to her platform, several awkward moments passing as we waited, I presumed, for the other Elder.

  When the Wards were suspended again behind me, and that third female walked in, I had the impression she had not been in a hurry to get here. The Prime did not grouse about the wait as she had to the Sorceress.

  “Plenty to do, Elder,” she said briskly.

  “Prime.”

  Favoritism came to my mind. The Prime did not seem to cherish mages all that much, and Elder Rausery was a warrior like her. Perhaps they each saw the sorceresses and wizards only as a necessity and not the basis of our refinement compared to the rest of the Deepearth.

  Or maybe they don’t give two fucks about ‘refinement’ at all.

  Elder Rausery came to stand next to Elder D’Shea while I stood on the Sorceress’ other side. I kept my eyes and lashes down although my chin up and back straight as Rausery nodded to my sponsor without any derision I could detect.

  “Elder D’Shea.”

  “Elder Rausery.”

  The Sorceress allowed an appropriate pause, and our eldest spoke without looking around.

  “D’Shea, report.”

  “Sirana crossed back into our borders with House dagger in hand eight marks ago. Her stated intent was to return to the Palace. She reasoned that she did not know where to find us.”

  The other chuckled. “Yeah, that would be a problem.”

  I was surprised to hear the humor in the second Elder’s voice. It was the rare kind that didn’t drip with spite.

  “The Priestess ritual adversely affected Sirana’s efforts, however,” D’Shea continued, “and she attacked the D’Verin Consort on the outskirts. Fortunately, no Davrin except Gaelan bore witness.”

  “Pregnant?” Rausery asked.

  “No. Gaelan caught her in time.”

  A pause, then, “I wasn’t aware the D’Verin Consort was alone to be attacked. Why would the Matron risk the wrath of the Palace and Sanctuary if he was taken or killed?”

  I saw Elder D’Shea nod out of my periphery as she expected the question. “I will be looking into this. However, he was protected. My Sisters found the place riddled with Wards. Sirana found a way around them and forced him to dispel the rest.”

  “Well, that’s…impressive. I guess.” Her head turned to look at me. “Must have been dying for some cock.”

  Rausery sounded amused again, but she couldn’t know how accurate that had seemed at the time. I had thought I might die. I ground my teeth as my memories were replaying with this “report.” My breathing deepened, I quivered a little, and both were noticeable.

  “What next?” Elder Rausery prompted.

  “Lead Jaunda and her team brought Sirana back here. She’s had one rest period with a meal, and my understanding is it’s the only one she’s had since the ritual.”

  “Okay.” Rausery moved in front of me, tapped at my foot with her boot. “Eyes up, recruit.”

  I obeyed, glad she wasn’t grabbing my jaw to make it happen. We watched each other a few moments. I saw deep umber eyes which were bright and alive in every way the Prime’s were not. This one was cunning as D’Shea, I would wager, and not indifferent to my being here. Elder Rausery held her mouth with amused interest; like Jaunda, it wasn’t hard to see her laughing freely. I felt small in front of her and aroused as I imagined her wearing a magic cock like Gaelan’s.

  “Wanna be one of the Sisterhood?” she asked.

  “Yes, Elder,” I answered without hesitation. My nipples chose this moment to become pebbled and turgid as if she’d offered to suck them instead. My fists clenched in embarrassment.

  Rausery tilted her head curiously at me and didn’t even glance below my chin. “What do you imagine being a Red Sister would be like?”

  I weighed my response despite the tremors. Freedom from a House where I had no place, freedom from the centuries of petty drudgery and politics facing me at Court. This, against the brutal terrorization of others for which the Queen’s Enforcers were known, and likely a shorter life ended by violence. Bold action under powerful, intelligent females who could easily get me killed versus caution and more time to watch drift by with full dependence on petty Matrons.

  I asked myself just why I would want to live a long time anywhere else? I also asked myself, could I do what I’d seen the Red Sisters do? How soon would I be tested? What would happen if I hesitated? Did I have to enjoy it? What constituted failure in their eyes?

  “Difficult,” I answered, my heart pounding in my ears. “Challenging.”

  “Scared?” Rausery asked.

  “Yes, Elder. But awake. And glad about it.”

  Her eyes stared into mine. “What do you mean?”

  “I was haze-walking at Court. Nothing to do but drink, breathe incense, and fuck in between plots for revenge.”

  “Why would you think that would be any different here with us?”

  That response put me off balance for a flick; she seemed serious.

  “Maybe it’s not,” I retracted. “But I already respect the Prime and the Elders more than the Matron of the First House. More than the Priestesses.”

  Saying that aloud before now would have made the entire Court table gasp in alarm and I could expect horrible backlash. Here, the Prime didn’t give a shit, and Rausery only smirked at me, her hands on her hips.

  “You respect us? Why? Because we had you raped a few times and dumped you naked to find your way back alone?”

  “You chose my final trial upon the Altar, Elder,” I returned as I learned her method. “You called the moment it would happen. I’ve never been so afraid, yet I made it out the other side with someplace I can use my ambition. The Sisterhood’s been watching me, I know. You want something, and I want to be strong. The Sisterhood can offer me this. The Matrons and the Priestesses can’t.”

  Rausery looked at Elder D’Shea, then. Out of my periphery, I saw the Sorceress show her beautiful teeth, straightening her shoulders as if she was proud or proven right in what she’d said about me. The commanding warrior grunted, looking back at me.

  “It’s gonna hurt, recruit, falling down and getting back up till you stay on your feet. The candle chamber wasn’t the worst of it.”

  My arousal blended with fear, and I stood there heaving like a fool on ecstatic spirits. “Yes, Elder. That’s still better than centuries at Court.”

  “I hear the Priestess made you fertile again,” she countered quickly, never blinking as she verbally shoved me off balance again. “Wouldn’t you rather g
o back to Matron Thalluen and challenge Kaltra as the Heir Apparent? If things got too hard here, would that be your backup plan? Just offer your Matron your new fertility. I’m sure she would take you back.”

  My quivers passed into trembling as the Prime stood up straight and turned to face us. The look on her face was like nothing I’d seen; I might imagine staring into the face of a Drider after being cocooned in its silk. I knew I didn’t have that choice despite Rausery bringing it up as a temptation. I’d already seen too much.

  “No,” I said. “My Matron and Kaltra deserve each other. I don’t want them. I want the Sisterhood.”

  Elder Rausery chuckled, nodded once, and turned her head to share eye contact with the Prime. “She’s worth a test, Prime. Give this cait the two-span here. See if she can take it.”

  “So be it,” the Prime rumbled. “Give the Sisters their orders, Elders, then both of you come back here. We have many tasks beyond coddling the recruit.”

  There would never be an apology for what had happened so far, nor for what happened next. After the Elders had gathered what members were in the compound with us—not nearly as many as had been in the candle chamber, and perhaps that was lucky for me—they kept it short.

  “This is Sirana,” the Elder Sorceress said, her hand laid with some possession on the back of my neck. “Get to know her.”

  Lead Jaunda was there. She had been grinning from the moment we walked in. As soon as D’Shea released my neck, Jaunda threw the first punch against another Red Sister, and the room erupted into a brawl as the two Elders left and sealed the door, making sure I couldn’t follow them out.

  I backed up against a wall as several caits in red uniforms lunged for me while being tackled and dragged back by others. I sprinted the perimeter of the room as pursuit became clear, as some bloody noses and abraded cheeks showed how determined they were about getting to me first.

  Holy Braqth.

  Gaelan was there but far at the rear not engaged in the brawl; she was trying to meet my eyes. I couldn’t tell what she was trying to say but spotted her casting something which made most of the others sluggish and fighting a yawn just as Jaunda broke out from the rest and avoided the effects.

  “Cheater!” someone groused.

  “No such thing,” Jaunda replied with a boisterous laugh, and she drove me into a corner. “C’mere, sweetmeat.”

  I didn’t fight her but let myself be grabbed and tossed over her shoulder like a sack of roots. I didn’t know who else among these hard fighters I might want to catch me anyway, so I curled up like an auf’s cub on her muscular back and accepted without protest the hard slaps she landed on each buttock as she crowed her delight in seizing the prize. I felt my sex respond to the strikes and begin to ache.

  I hoped this Lead had a magic toy like Gaelan.

  Jaunda moved fast like she expected others to follow, weaving through the curving hallways and passing down a ramp or two. Gaelan wasn’t behind us, but I did hear noise fading from the room in which I’d been fought over. I made no motion which would slow Jaunda down or throw off her balance, and after we slipped into a void-black room. As she got the door closed and secured, the Lead commented on my cooperation, whispering in my ear as she pressed me to a cold, stone wall with her hard and hot body.

  “You’re making this easy, recruit.”

  She nipped the tip of my ear. She was breathing hard, and she smelled like she had just been in a fight.

  “W-want me to resist, Lead?” I asked as she ran her hands over my hips, waist, and back before gripping my ass in fighter’s hands.

  “Only if it’s real.”

  Jaunda kissed me as hard as before, forcing her tongue into my mouth as she had in my quarters at Court. I didn’t scream this time; I felt no need. She yanked off a glove, tossed it aside, and pushed two fingers into my sopping slit, and I moaned in pleasure. She wrenched her mouth off mine, and I complained in a different tone.

  “Braqth’s Tits,” she cursed, and I could see her shape better now in the pure dark as my sex squeezed around her fingers. She curled them, and my knees nearly collapsed as my eyes rolled up. “You’re ready to go, aren’t you, Sirana?”

  She had mistaken my shakes for fear. They weren’t. Not at all.

  “D-do you have…what Gaelan had?” I asked. “The phallus?”

  She chuckled. “Fuck, yeah. Gonna use it, too.”

  “Good.”

  We shared another kiss, one I initiated, and my cunt squelched with moisture as she explored me deeper.

  “Fuck me,” I begged her.

  I wasn’t fully aware of every mark during that first span in the Red Sisters’ Cloister, as different groups came in and out in between missions. I recollected the most intense pleasure alone with Jaunda in her dark room, and a few more brawls and pursuits ensued which woke me up temporarily from the haze of lust. When some Red Sisters grabbed me and used my body in groups, it became a blur—mostly pleasurable, thanks to the Priestess ritual, but not always.

  They didn’t all have their own Feldeu—that magical attachment through which they felt so much arousal and sensation—but some would share the tool and others would make do without, grinding my face and various parts of my body with their furry mounds. They all marked me in their way, and there was no part of my body which remained unexplored or unsampled.

  I learned quickly to submit and not to think about Jilrina at all, no matter how many slits I was made to suck and lick. This was a test, and I wouldn’t fail; I wouldn’t be released from the Cloister regardless, so best learn to be accepted by these others. I even had an edge that most recruits didn’t, with Braqth’s Threshold keeping me receptive despite the soreness. With the seemingly endless variation and lack of boundaries in what was acceptable for females to do to one another, it didn’t feel the same as a wannabe-Priestess’ rigid rituals with an inappropriately aged sacrifice, anyway.

  I knew a lot of Red Sisters before I saw Gaelan again. Kiren’s comment about her wanting off the “bottom rung” rang true as she was one of the last to take me into her arms. She tried to get me alone as Jaunda had, and I was willing, but I learned that a Red Sister also needed to defend one’s territory from bigger, meaner ones.

  “You’ve already had her, Thena!” Gaelan growled after a scuffle with Suna and Panagan in her own quarters where she was knocked down. Meanwhile, Moria grabbed me in a headlock.

  “Go lap D’Shea’s dirt hole, conduit.”

  “Elder D’Shea! Sirana, say n—”

  Suna punched Gaelan in the gut while Panagan bound and gagged her.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Thena grinned unpleasantly at me. I hadn’t seen her in about four cycles and wished she wasn’t here now. “Ready, Sirana? Been dreaming about you in the field and we got some pressure to blow off. You make such delicious sounds hope you haven’t forgotten how.”

  I had some martial training from Court, but it wasn’t enough to take on four Red Sisters and expect to stay here alone with Gaelan as I wanted. Gaelan didn’t even have that, and they’d made sure the mage couldn’t cast behind their backs.

  I smirked at Thena, my neck squeezed by Moria’s arm. “I haven’t. And you make such funny faces, Thena. I need a good laugh.”

  “Cute, cait.”

  She grabbed my hair, Moria let go, and they hauled me to their barracks on the other side of the Cloister. Unfortunately for me, the effects of Braqth’s Threshold were wearing off. Thena and her group didn’t seem to notice or have a concern, and they were rougher than before unless it was only my perception.

  Either way, this was different. This was a punishment of something more than making a snide remark. I maintained the banter and stubborn smirk at first, but they kept me awake and without rest for a long time, wearing me down, taking turns themselves to rest. I wasn’t sure how long, but Thena only seemed satisfied when I was finally thinking about Jilrina far more than was good for my survival.

  When I contemplated
a Red Sister’s murder for the first time.

  “She’s gonna bite it off, Corpora,” Suna said to Thena, a mock at me and a warning to her.

  Their leader just laughed. “Goddess, look at her eyes! She’s livid! I wanna make her gag while she looks up like that!”

  Something snapped when Thena approached me again, brandishing her phallus. I growled, my fingers curled into claws. I moved first; I tried to gouge her eyes out, not thinking.

  “NO!” I roared as the other three pounced on me, as I ripped bloody lines open in Thena’s left cheek but narrowly missed her eye. “No! Get off me!”

  I yelled at the top of my voice, surging up, butting my head into Suna’s nose, and elbowing Panagan somewhere that made her grunt. Moria hooked my thigh with an arm, her cheek pressed to my dirty, naked ass, and pulled me off balance and back onto Thena, who grabbed my hips, trying to make me sit on her Feldeu for the third time while facing her.

  “Gotta tear you up a bit more to play right, ‘cruit? Fine. Suna, mount up behind her. We’ll go together.”

  Thena twisted my wrist, perhaps broke it. I screamed full-throated and didn’t hold back any sound that came after.

  “Eat my shit, Corpora!”

  I bellowed, struggled, and resisted more than I had any Red Sister so far as Suna got behind me, pressing her own cock into the crack of my ass.

  “Let me go! I’ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill you!”

  The Ward on the door shattered and it opened behind us. Panagan and Moria were startled, jumping back, and the next thing I knew, I heard a clunk and a grunt from Suna before she flopped to the side. Someone grabbed hold of me with both arms, around the waist and across my chest, hauling me up and off Thena the same way Gaelan had wrenched me off the D’Verin Consort. This time, however, I wasn’t tossed onto the floor but instead passed securely into the mage’s arms.

  “Enough, Corpora,” Lead Jaunda ordered as she stepped in front of Gaelan and me. “Time’s done. She said no, I heard it.”